Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/254

 be the answer to every remonstrance. But the case will be very different when every elector may personally acquire respect, or incur disgrace, by the selection which he makes. In addition to what is merely personal, another powerful feeling of an elevating character, which has already been spoken of, will be called forth. A collective or corporate feeling of pride is brought into existence,—for, although men readily discover reasons for not ascribing to themselves any part of the ignominy that attaches to an act which is disgraceful to the body they belong to, yet they are always prompt to claim a share of the credit their community may have gained, and which they commonly appreciate at the utmost of its worth. Dispositions such as these are moral levers. In them we have presented to us a field, both for merit and praise, boundless as the imagination; the civic honours which the people may confer on their more worthy countrymen, by placing them in the front ranks of the Commons of the kingdom, have no limits but the public appreciation of high desert and of the value of such a reward. In the proposed system of election the return of the same member may be double or multiple. The majority in every constituency will confer upon their chosen candidate the title of representative for their particular body; but as the purely political object ceases when the quota is made up, the majority, in placing one member rather than another in the first place, will commonly have no motive but the laudable one of showing the nation that they delight to honour one of its worthiest sons. The prevailing sentiment will be that which we observe to govern the members of ancient institutions and learned and scientific bodies, in nominating as their chancellors, their rectors, or their presidents, the eminent persons of their time. There is no borough, or electoral community, which may not be titularly represented by the most distinguished men, without, in any degree, interfering with their